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More Farm Stuff

Posted on September 15, 2015 by Janet

The last few days on the farm have been so pleasant and interesting. The weather got really chilly for a bit last week, but it started to warm up again over the weekend and is even meant to hit 93 on Thursday!

Yesterday, I took care of the chickens, which meant cleaning out the chicken coop and the feeding and watering dishes, as well as sweeping the sweepable area in the chicken pen. Sounds easy enough, but nothing seemed to go right. I missed that I was supposed to use a giant spade/shovel to scrape the poop out of the coop and instead ended up with a broom full of moist poop and poop smeared across the floor of the coop. Then, while filling up the big water jug with the hose, I stuck my hand straight into a nice bush of stinging nettles. Those nettles! They keep grabbing at my legs and ankles and I keep brushing my hands and arms against them. They’re horrible! Once I get done with ALL that, I go to plug the hose back into the attachment to water one of the garden beds, except I’ve somehow managed to open up a hole in the side of the nozzle that is now shooting out water all over the place and I can’t figure out how to close it. Honestly, this hose is all high-tech and I feel like I need an engineering degree to even use it. It’s worse than a TV remote! I had to shut the hose off and let the owner take care of it. Not the most auspicious start to the week, but at least I learned something new and got treated to another wonderful, much needed lesson in…patience!

After cleaning out the chicken coop, I went to weed my newly sown beds of Mizuna and Bok Choi. Little sprouts were starting to emerge from the soil where I’d sown the tiniest seeds last week – triumph! The owner showed me which were the seedlings and left me to weed out everything else. Here’s what the Mizuna seedling looks like:

I paid really close attention when she was showing me what my seedlings looked like so I wouldn’t accidentally pull them all out in the weeding. “A two-leaf sprout” I remembered. Except, in addition to my Mizuna above, this little two-leafer was all over the bed, as well:

Well, what do you think happened? I pulled out all those seedlings I had just successfully sown and left that stupid weed in its place. Can you believe it?! I was so mad at myself! Fortunately, the owner is really patient and kind. She gave me some more seeds to sow and even joked about how, since I’d managed to leave a few of the seedlings behind in the bed, it would be like a succession planting.

At least the day ended well, as we had a bonfire. It was a pretty good night for it – not too hot to enjoy the fire, but not so cold as to be miserable walking back to the house afterward. We made stick-bread. Have you heard of this? The Germans taught us about it. It’s a camping thing. You take a long, thin branch and use a knife to strip the bark off of it. Then, you take some bread dough, stretch it out like a long worm, wrap it around the stick, and then roast it over the fire like a marshmallow. It reminded me of these cakes the Hungarians make, which are made of dough wrapped around some kind of pole and baked over a fire or an open oven. I’m sure you could do the same thing with the stick-bread – just put a little cinnamon and sugar in the dough and bam: stick-cake. It was pretty fantastic. We had some bread, cheese, salad, wine, and great company.

Today was a lot of painting. Some of the older signs needed to be re-touched with new coloring as they had faded quite a bit over the last year since they were made. I really enjoy the painting, and often just cover up whatever’s on the original sign and replace it with my own design. It’s fun.

Refreshed signs. Don’t mind the mantis, who was looking up at me like “The f*** are you doing?!” when I arranged this photo.

I also finished up my dragonfly:

The quote on the wings is from Rumi. It says:

The ground’s generosity takes in our compost and grows beauty. Try to be more like the ground. Give back better, as rough clods return an ear of corn…

I thought that was a nice quote for a piece of garden art.

In the afternoon, I took a book out to the garden-side hammock for some relaxation. There’s this beautiful purple flower bush I walk past to get to the garden that attracts an abundance of bees, moths and butterflies. I took notice of a couple of these guys today and had to snap a photo:

I’ve never seen a butterfly like that before. If you know what kind it is, let me know in the comments. I also snapped a shot of one of the biggest bumble bees I’ve ever seen:

They have normal bees here, too, as well as massive hornets, but these giganto-bees really surprised me! It probably goes without saying that there are a lot of bugs out here. I had a grasshopper try and join me in the shower today. There’s a dog here who’s gotten very good at catching the flies and moths constantly buzzing and fluttering around his head. It’s quite amusing to watch him go after them.

TL;DR: Rookie mistakes and good times on the farm.

Virtual Book Club

The Purpose Driven Life: Days 36-40

Posted on September 12, 2015 by Janet

Warren organized his book into a 40-day journey divided among what he asserts are God’s 5 purposes for our lives according to his interpretation of the Bible:

You were planned for God’s pleasure
You were formed for God’s family
You were created to become like Christ
You were shaped for serving God
You were made for a mission

Days 36-40 concern purpose 5: what it means to be made for a mission. I was hoping the last chapters would culminate in eye-opening inspiration, and perhaps for some people they do, but I found them wildly disappointing. These chapters are highly dogmatic with our “mission” being to proselytize for Christ. Specifically, Warren tells us we are to (1) share the Good News of eternal salvation through Jesus Christ (2) with others near and far (3) by telling others our own salvation story:

What life was like before Jesus
How you realized you needed Jesus
How you committed your life to Jesus
The difference Jesus has made in your life

That pretty much sums up days 36-38, with days 39 and 40 largely reiterating points made elsewhere in the book.

There are a handful of noteworthy observations in these chapters, but honestly, I’m done with this book. While I have found some truth in Warren’s words, the almost constant assault of self-serving rhetoric has been exhausting and burdensome to sift through and set aside. Everything about the book – from the organization into a 40-day journey, to the emphasis on eternity and pitying the unsaved, to the carefully selected Bible translations and paraphrases to support Warren’s personal opinions – is pedantic pandering to the subset of Christians who want to be handed a blueprint for salvation so they can judge each other for not following it. The only reason the book is 40 chapters is because 40 is a magic number in Christianity. If Christ had wrestled with the Devil for 36 days instead of 40, then this book would have 36 chapters. As it is, the division of chapters seemed arbitrary and unnecessary (as if Warren set out to fill 40 chapters rather than simply writing the book and numbering the chapters accordingly) and, even though it’s pitched as a 40-day journey, the book actually has 42 chapters. Then there’s the cherry-picking of Bible verses to back up his assertions – a fine example of unchecked confirmation bias – and the frequent self-contradiction. There’s loads of criticism out there regarding Warren’s questionable interpretation of Bible verse to support his points (here’s the Google search results, if you’re interested in seeing for yourself). The whole thing just has a very silver-tongued, snake-oil merchant feel to me.

Maybe Warren is right and the only way to truly live is to commit your life to the very dogmatic interpretation of the Bible he offers in this book, but I just can’t buy it today. Maybe someday, but not today. Maybe someday I’ll “realize I need Jesus,” get saved, and join up with the Christian soldiers onward in their mission to “get one more for Jesus.” But today, I’m really just disappointed by the tired dogma pitched as inspiration.

TL;DR: No tl;dr for virtual book club posts.

Farm/Hungary/Travelogue

Cornucopia of Change

Posted on September 10, 2015 by Janet

This has been quite the overwhelming week, and I didn’t even realize it until I sat down to write this post. People have left (and two more are leaving tomorrow), and new people have shown up in their absence, each bringing their unique personalities, skills and interests to the ever-changing mix here. The hardest part for me, of course, is living with other people again. I can’t leave my bedroom without running into another person, which means I have little or no control over when and with whom and how I interact.

Well…that’s not really true, is it? I have some control, I just don’t know how to exercise it, do I? I’m such a chameleon, adapting myself to (what I perceive as) the personalities of those around me. I really lose myself (or give myself up?) around other people. I’m constantly allowing distractions to cloud my mind. I often feel anxious and uncertain, not sure where I should be or what I should be doing. Is this what social anxiety is?

On the plus side, I’ve been doing a pretty good job of reading and meditating in the mornings, which is just the best thing ever. It’s the only thing that keeps me centered enough to realize that my distractedness and unease are not the fault of others but of my own lack of presence. I suppose this is good practice for me, then.

This week has involved some weeding and sowing, harvesting hazelnuts, and lots of mowing and cooking. The tiny store in town sells these massive loaves of fantastic, fluffy white bread, just perfect for French toast. I harvest apples, peel and slice them, mix them up with some sugar, cinnamon and raisins, then cook it all up for a delicious topping. It’s definitely a good start to the morning, especially as cold as it’s been lately. One of my British roomies hadn’t ever had French toast before, so I got to introduce her to the deliciousness. Other Janet creations this week include an eggplant ragout and veggie frittata.

This week has also involved lots of card playing. It turns out the Brits know a lot of card games and introduced us to some fun ones. Maybe the funnest activity of the week, though, was creating this guy:

The body is a few broken broom sticks and poles tied together with scrap wire; the tail must be some sort of industrial-sized pipe cleaner; the wings are barrel rings with some wire mesh for decoration; the head is a massive spring; one eye is junk and the other is an old children’s toy; and, yes, he’s wearing glasses. The owner keeps everything and uses junk and scrap materials for various garden art projects, like a family of garden dragonflies. This guy may get a bit more decoration, but is otherwise ready for the garden.

TL;DR: Lots of new experiences and unanticipated learning opportunities on the farm this week.

Farm/Hungary/Travelogue

The Farm: Week 1

Posted on September 6, 2015 by Janet

Last week on the farm, I:

Did a lot of weeding;
Learned about “sheet mulching” as a quick and easy way to start a new garden bed;
Helped to expand one of the garden beds using this sheet mulching method;
Mowed a bunch of grass and collected the clippings for mulch;
Learned the difference between compost and mulch, the order they should be layered in when creating a new bed, and why they’re both important to a healthy garden;
Learned a bit about companion crops, specifically growing crops for the explicit purpose of attracting harmful bugs away from other plants; and
Foraged for felled wood in the forest to make a fence

I don’t know yet what I’ll be doing this week. Tasks are usually assigned each morning according to whatever part of the property seems to need the most attention. But, I suspect part of this week will be spent making a fence from the foraged wood we collected, not to mention finishing up the bed I started expanding, and possibly planting some winter crops?

The Spanish girl who met me at the train station left this week and another couple showed up from the UK, fresh out of “uni,” as they call it. They’ll be here through Thursday, and the girl from Vermont leaves Wednesday, when two new people are supposed to show up from I don’t know where. I honestly don’t know how the owner manages it all – it’s quite a lot of balls to juggle.

This place has only been up and running for about a year, so it’s still very much in start-up phase. There’s a lot of physically demanding work that needs to done to turn this year-old farm into a self-sustaining permaculture system. We work about 5 hours a day, 5 days a week, often hunched over the beds or lifting and carrying awkward loads around the property. That said, I realized this morning just how completely relaxed I am being out here. Every day brings new challenges, and I am immersed in a completely foreign environment where everything is new to me. It’s kind of like being in school again, but without all the stress and striving and competition. It’s really wonderful so far.

TL;DR: Every day’s a new adventure on the farm.

Virtual Book Club

The Purpose Driven Life: Day 35

Posted on September 5, 2015 by Janet

In day 35, Warren tells us “God loves to use weak people” – our weaknesses are God’s strength.

As I was reading this chapter, I began to think about how humans use language to explain the world and how those explanations can be misunderstood, warped, and take on a life of their own. Warren refers to “Satan” in this chapter, and I bristled at this word and at the concept Warren intends to communicate with it – the notion that there is some external personification of Evil, separate from us, that tries to draw us away from an external, separate personification of Good. I’ve previously touched on the notion that words are just words and that we can discard words that don’t suit us for words that do (e.g. God = Good, Truth, Light, Being, etc.), but I found that word “Satan” to be such a stumbling block for me that I want to delve further into that topic.

The idea that we can replace words we don’t like with words we do is not mine. I got it from Eckhart Tolle, who says that words are merely symbols for describing what is – the word itself isn’t what’s important, what’s important is what the word is meant to symbolize. Shakespeare captured this truth well in Juliet’s line: “A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.” A rose is a rose is a rose no matter what you call it. The same goes for Truth. You can call Truth anything you want. You can even deny Truth. But none of that makes Truth any less true.

So, we have Truth and we have not Truth. I think that’s a pretty useful binary model for describing our world. What more do you need, really? And it’s this Truth – along with the consequences of denying Truth – that religious texts seek to explain. You don’t have to be an adherent of a religion – or even a believer in God – to recognize the deep truths captured in its canons. Yet, sometimes language becomes a stumbling block to hearing those truths – we get caught on a word and what it symbolizes to us and cannot get past it to hear the truth it’s meant to explain.

For example, the word “Satan.” I hate that word. Every time I hear it or see it my mind closes to the speaker and I stop listening to what they’re saying, start labeling and categorizing them, and pretty much dismiss them as someone to whom I cannot (and do not want to) relate. That’s my own hang up, though, and a different topic for a different day, but the point here is that word “Satan” – what is meant to symbolize?

If we have only Truth and not Truth, and if religious texts seek only to explain Truth and the consequences of denying Truth, then we can choose to understand the word “God” to symbolize “Truth” and “Satan” to symbolize “not Truth.” We can choose to understand that Heaven is where we reside and joy is what we experience when we abide only in Truth, and that Hell and suffering are the consequences of abiding in not Truth (symbolized by the word “sinning”). Heaven and Hell do not need to symbolize otherworldly places our souls go after our bodies die. We can understand that we create Heaven or Hell right here and right now, each and every moment. We can be reborn in Truth every moment if we choose to be.

If it’s all just Truth and not Truth, then where did the concepts of God and Satan – external embodiments of Truth and not Truth, of Good and Evil – even come from? I personally see it as a way of alleviating human guilt over human imperfection. By personifying Truth as a perfect Being, separate from and external to us, we can not only relieve ourselves of the guilt of abiding in not Truth, but also of not even trying to abide in Truth because we’ve set the bar so high as to be unattainable. When someone does come along who manages to abide perfectly in Truth – Jesus Christ – we deify them so that we can continue to keep Truth separate from humanity and let ourselves off the hook for choosing to abide in not Truth instead of in Truth. “Satan” – the external personification of not Truth – is merely a means of denying responsibility for our actions: “It’s not my fault – Satan made me do it!”

That was a long sidebar, but it’s important not to let terminology stand in the way of understanding. If the symbol used to represent a concept doesn’t work for you, replace it with one that does. This book has been a constant exercise for me in doing just that.

Okay, weaknesses…I really loved this chapter. Admitting our weaknesses – even to ourselves – can be terrifying and painful enough, let alone embracing them. Yet, that’s exactly what Warren advocates in this chapter:

Admit your weaknesses. Own up to your imperfections…our weaknesses increase our capacity for sympathy and ministry. We are far more likely to be compassionate and considerate of the weaknesses of others…other people are going to find healing in your wounds. Your greatest life messages and your most effective ministry will come out of your deepest hurts. The things you’re most embarrassed about, most ashamed of, and most reluctant to share are the very tools God can use most powerfully to heal others.

It’s not only others who benefit when we admit our weaknesses:

It can be scary to lower your defenses and open up your life to others. When you reveal your failures, feelings, frustrations, and fears, you risk rejection. But the benefits are worth the risk. Vulnerability is emotionally liberating. Opening up relieves stress, defuses your fears, and is the first step to freedom.

I can vouch for all of that. We think that admitting our weaknesses makes us vulnerable, but I find that hiding them is where I feel most vulnerable. When you try to hide something, you have to constantly worry about being found out and protecting yourself from being found out, which is stressful. This means you can’t let anyone get too close, so loneliness and disconnection are the natural consequences of hiding. If you are found out, the shame can be paralyzing, even more so when you have no one to turn to for support because you’ve kept everyone at arm’s distance.

Bringing the things we’re ashamed of into the light is liberating, but it does require a certain amount of emotional fortitude. Some people will reject you, and you have to be prepared for that and be okay with it. If you’ve been hiding your true self, pretending to be someone you’re not, for a long time, you may find most of the people in your life will reject you when you drop the facade. This is normal – you’re not who they thought you were. This is also a good thing – by shedding yourself of shallow relationships built on not Truth, you make room for people who accept and love you, not who you pretend to be.

Perhaps this all sounds very basic and even obvious to the point of going without saying – something you learn as a child and never worry about again. But, there’s a reason Brené Brown is such a phenom right now. Despite what our parents tried to teach us, I think most of us learned how to bury our fears, insecurities and weaknesses deep inside us from and early age so that it’s become second nature to us – we don’t even realize we do it, we just think it’s who we are. And, because we create the world around us through projection, we are surrounded by people who are just like us – people who hide their fears, insecurities and weaknesses deep inside themselves, so deep they may not even remember they’re there, and who viciously defend themselves like an injured animal if you come too close to touching those old, festering wounds.

When you change your perception, when you stop being ashamed of your weaknesses, you upend your entire world. Warren says “The more you let down your guard, take off your mask, and share your struggles, the more God will be able to use you in serving others.” In other words, the more you accept and abide in Truth, the more joy you’ll experience.

TL;DR: No tl;dr for virtual book club posts.

Virtual Book Club

The Purpose Driven Life: Day 34

Posted on September 4, 2015 by Janet

Day 34 continues with the topic of servanthood – thinking like a servant. This chapter really requires believing in something greater than one’s individual ego as it teachings are in direct opposition to the ego. For example: “Self-denial is the core of servanthood.”

I don’t think self-denial is the core of servanthood. But, I do think ego-denial is – abandoning the selfish and destructive desires of the ego for something other than the ego. But for what? I wrote in day 33 that we are innately compassionate, but where does that compassion come from? Where does it reside? Certainly not the ego, for which life is a zero sum game – if you win, I lose. Compassion resides somewhere else in us. Servanthood isn’t about denying the self in favor of an external and distant God; it’s about denying the ego in favor of our True Self. We don’t find joy in denying our Selves, we find joy in expressing our Selves more fully as we leave our little, insecure, fearful egos behind.

As often occurs for me as I read this book, I bristled at much of Warren’s language in this chapter while still finding many of his observations astute and succinctly put:

Unfortunately, a lot of our service is often self-serving. We serve to get others to like us, to be admired, or to achieve our own goals. That is manipulation…The whole time we’re really thinking about ourselves and how noble and wonderful we are.

If you’re giving to get, you’re doing it wrong. We’ve all done this at some point in our lives – offered to do something for someone else, or given our help when asked, with the expectation that the other person would satisfy our demand in exchange. Whether you secure their compliance or not, you ultimately lose. You lost the moment you offered “help” with strings attached. If they comply, they will resent and mistrust you; if they don’t, you will be frustrated and maybe even feel taken advantage of. At no point do either of you experience joy, only struggle. That’s how you know you’re doing it wrong – by its fruit.

When Jesus is your Master, money serves you, but if money is your master, you become its slave.

I can’t speak to the first half of that quote, but I certainly know the second half to be true. Being a slave to money has driven me to take and keep jobs that made me miserable and kept me in an unhappy marriage longer than I would have stayed otherwise. How often is money, or lack there of, or a desire to acquire more of it, or fear of losing it or of not having enough the primary factor in major decisions regarding your happiness – going to school, buying a house, having kids, traveling, pursuing a hobby, pursuing your dream?

We’ve grown so accustomed to money driving the world, being the deciding factor in everything, that to NOT do so seems insane, impossible, and unthinkable. The world seems to trust in money and in little else. Though, spiritual traditions would say that we literally create the world around us through our projections, by projecting our own (faulty) beliefs and thoughts on to the world. In other words, I see a world driven by money because I am driven by money.

But, there is another way, which Warren asserts is accepting Jesus as your master. I don’t think it need be so dogmatic or specific, but it certainly requires having faith in something greater than your ego and greater than money and trusting that, if you let it guide you, money will be taken care of. I would love to have that much faith in anything.

It is not our job to evaluate [others]…It is also not our job to defend ourselves against criticism.

I’ve written about judgment and criticism before here and here, so I won’t repeat myself, but I appreciate Warren’s reminders. His words on criticism remind me of the delightful adage that “what other people think of me is none of my business.”

Only secure people can serve. Insecure people are always worrying about how they appear to others.

This statement rang so true to me. You can see this everywhere you look – people who are unwilling to do small, petty or communal tasks (everyone’s job and no one’s job) because they’re afraid others will perceive them as weak. Once, many years ago, when I was in Russia, I was doing a tour of St. Petersberg with mostly Russians. At breakfast one morning, I grabbed some bread and passed the basket to the man next to me, who blatantly ignored me. He just sat there with a self-satisfied look on his face, staring straight ahead. His wife (or girlfriend) reached over and took the bread from me and proceeded to make his breakfast for him – basically meat and cheese on a piece of buttered bread – at the group dining table while he sat silently smirking. This guy fairly basked in his own perceived glory of having a woman publicly wait on him while he ignored her and everyone else around him; I thought he was pathetic.

At the other end of the spectrum, you have insecure people who serve with strings attached – to curry favor, rub elbows, appear selfless, what have you. They also worry about how others see them, but instead of avoiding serving to appear strong and in command (controlling), they seek to “serve” to appear kind and helpful to gather support for some ulterior motive (manipulating).

In order to be of service to others we have to die to them; that is, we have to give up measuring our meaning and value with the yardstick of others… thus we become free to be compassionate.

-Quoting Henri Nouwen

“We have to give up measuring our meaning and value with the yardstick of others…” Was ever there a more difficult (or important) undertaking?

TL;DR: No tl;dr for virtual book club posts.

Farm/Hungary/Travelogue

The Farm

Posted on September 1, 2015 by Janet

I made it to the farm yesterday. It went well enough, though there was a comedy-of-errors feel to the trip. I traveled by train and I purchased a first class ticket for the portion of my trip that offered it, about ¾ of the trip. I was happy to see the first class car had Wi-Fi and power outlets. I was looking forward to doing some writing on the train, but my computer went on the fritz right before I left the States and now it basically doesn’t function unless it’s plugged in, so the power outlet was a welcome perk. I tried to access the Wi-Fi, but to no avail – I wasn’t able to join the network. I plugged in my phone to charge it, but then decided to plug in my computer instead so I could write while charging my phone through my computer. The outlet was working and my phone was charging when I unplugged it, but when I plugged in my computer, no dice – there was no power from the outlet. I plugged my phone back in directly to the outlet – still no power. Later, as I was sitting in my seat sweating and wondering why it was so hot, I noticed a window in the front of the car had been opened up and the train attendant was staring up at the AC vents – the power in the car was completely out.

I got to my transfer point and made my way from the train to the station with my still ridiculously massive and overweight bag that also has a hinky wheel and so I kind of have to push it in front of me instead of walking it nicely beside me. I also had a tote bag full of food items I had brought with me from Budapest – a brand new bottle of apple cider vinegar (just purchased that morning and unopened), a bottle of grapeseed oil, a bottle of olive oil, a bottle of fizzy water, a bottle of tea, cheddar cheese, sugar, an orange, and a nectarine – slung around the suitcase handle and hanging off the front of the suitcase, making it top heavy and even more unwieldy. Well, the suitcase went down, right on top of the tote bag. And, because I was trying to prevent the suitcase going down by holding on to it, I went down with it, bending over at the hip and basically doing downward dog on my suitcase in the middle of the train yard. I heard a gushing sound and realized the fizzy water had burst and was drenching my tote bag. I pulled the fizzy water out, uprighted my suitcase and put my tote back on it, and continued on my way another 100m or so to the station building. It wasn’t until I was inside the building that I noticed the strong smell of apple cider vinegar. The bottle – the glass bottle – had broken in the fall, along with both the bottles of oil. My bag was dripping vinegar and oil and leaving a pool of it on the train station floor. I quickly rushed the tote back outside and tried to salvage it, but I realized there was no way I was ever going to be able to use this tote again and threw it and everything in it in the garbage. Meanwhile, I left my backpack – with my passport, money, computer, everything of real value – sitting on the floor in the station and my cell phone sitting on the windowsill while I’m trying to hall my oil-dripping tote outside and salvage what I can. Fortunately, nothing got stolen. My hands now drenched in oil and vinegar, I have to wash them, but the toilet is downstairs. I leave my suitcase at the top of the staircase and head downstairs to use the bathroom, which has a 100HUF fee. The fee wasn’t the problem, but fishing the money out of my wallet with oil all over my hands was. I finally handed over the money and went in to wash my hands. I also grabbed a pile of paper towels to try to mop up the pool of oil I left sitting on the station floor. Lastly, I told – well, mimicked really, since she didn’t speak English and I don’t speak enough Hungarian – the ticket person about the spill and risk of someone slipping before heading out to catch my train. I only had about 10-15 minutes between arrival and departure, and I was worried I would end up missing my train, but I didn’t.

When I got to my final destination, one of the other farm volunteers was there to greet me and help me back to the farm since the host was away and couldn’t pick me up. It’s a tiny town and the farm is only about a 10-minute walk from the train station, but the road is rough and it was a real pain with my suitcase. But, I made it and got settled in. There are two other volunteers here right now – two girls, an American and a Spaniard. We stay in a separate house from the host, who owns two adjacent properties. I actually have my own room, which was a surprise to me. In fact, there’s only one small bed in here, so I don’t think I’ll have to share a room at all.

“Farm” might be a bit of an overstatement to describe this place. I’m not terribly familiar with property sizes, but I’m going to guess each property is about an acre. The owner purchased the first property a year ago and only recently acquired the adjacent property. The property was totally uncultivated at the time and they had to bring in a tractor to clear it before they could start laying down plant beds. I would say about a quarter of the available land has actually been cultivated for agriculture. The owner is cultivating the land using permaculture techniques and has decided to leave a big portion of the property between the gardens and the adjacent forest as an uncultivated meadow, with lots of flowers and weeds, because it’s pretty, but also as a barrier and means of keeping insects out of the garden. A huge variety of vegetables grow in the gardens, there are many fruit trees on the property, and at least a dozen chickens provide eggs (?) and help with the composting. There’s a compost toilet, a tree house, a gazebo-type structure and bench made from foraged forest wood, and three hammocks for lounging after the day’s work is done. All of this and more has been done by the owner and the steady stream of volunteers that have come through here over the past year. The neighbors have a flock of sheep and goats 1000 strong.

The town can hardly be described as a town. It has a church, a school, a tiny grocery/convenience store that’s open 6am-noon and closed Wednesdays and Fridays, a tobacco store, and a bar. That’s it.

My first day on the farm was spent learning a ton of new stuff from the owner as we walked around the property and she explained to me how everything works, how she has designed the place, and introduced me to various edible plans, including Nasturtium, which has an edible flower (we had this in our salad at lunch), and Purslane, a succulent with small leaves that is a supposed super-food. A vegetarian lunch is provided to us and is prepared by a woman who is a volunteer, but who seems to be here permanently. Lunch today was an amazing feast – tomato and cucumber salad; a beet, cabbage and raisin dish; beans; some sort of grain that looked a bit like quinoa or brown rice, but which derives from wheat and whose name I can’t remember; and a vegetable stir-fry with squash, carrots, onions, and other goodies. It was wonderful!

I’m looking forward to my time here.

TL;DR: I’m on a farm. So far so good.

Farm/Hungary/Travelogue

My New Purchase

Posted on August 31, 2015 by Janet

I made my first clothing purchase here in Budapest yesterday – this sunhat. I’m going to need it when I get to my farm stay.

Sunday was my last full day in Budapest, and I made the most of it. I rode my bicycle over to Margit Island and enjoyed a lovely couple hours getting to know it. I meandered back over to Vaci Utca, the shopping street, where I found this great buy at only about $8. I had dinner at a cafe I’ve been wanting to try and dessert at Gerbeaud, a fancy, historic cafe and coffee house that’s been an establishment in Budapest since 1858. I even tried out the little Hungarian I’ve learned. I’ve pretty much only spoken Hungarian in my language lessons, too shy to try it with vendors and waiters who speak English. But, I gave it a shot last night. It was awesome.

Today, I’m off to do a farm stay. The farm is a couple hours south and west of Budapest and I’ll be traveling there by train. I’m looking forward to it. A friend I met at Herräng just completed a farm stay of her own in Sweden and loved it. I’ve never done anything resembling farm work before, so it’ll certainly be a new experience for me. I don’t know how long I’ll be there – it depends on how well it works out for us.

Wish me luck, friends!

TL;DR: City girl moves to the farm.

Hungary/Travelogue

Random Budapest

Posted on August 30, 2015 by Janet

During my time here in Budapest, I’ve collected a random smattering of memories that don’t warrant a post by themselves, but which I want to share with you here in one, giant regurgitation. Enjoy 🙂

Street Art

Budapest doesn’t have the same street art culture as Rio de Janiero, but I stumbled across some lovely works nonetheless. I’m not sure these count as street art as much as simply wall murals, but I wanted to note them anyway.

Modern Architecture

Budapest really prides itself on its modern (and historic) architectural innovations and identity. That pride is well deserved. Many of their more historic structures were firsts for the world and considered incredible feats of engineering. Here are a few of the modern buildings I managed to snap.

Balna, Budapest — This is the shopping center Balna. The architect added that glass and steel structure to the two historic warehouse buildings. I didn’t go in, but it certainly struck an image from outside.

Modern office (apartment?) buildings along one of the main roads. I really appreciate how much character all their buildings have. Aside from the few communist era buildings in the city, all the buildings have a unique personality. No cookie-cutter architecture here.

Budapest Palace of Arts. — The new Palace of Arts. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palace_of_Arts_(Budapest)

Rock Church

The Rock Church is a church and monastery built into the natural cave system within Gellert Hill. This is as close as I got to it. This is probably the thing I most regret not seeing while I was in town.

Stairwells of Buda

I mentioned before that Buda, west of the Danube, is the hilly side of Budapest. While walking around there, I decided to photo document some of the many stairwells I traversed.

Staircase, Gellert Hill, Buda — This was taken along the north side of Gellert Hill.

Staircase, Buda Castle, Budapest — This is a stairwell in the Buda Castle area leading down to Varkart Bazaar and the Danube. It’s dangerous to walk down at night – the view is very distracting!

Staircase, Fisherman's Bastion, Buda — One of the many staircases at the beautiful Fisherman’s Bastion.

Shoes on the Danube

This monument has been referred to as one of Budapest’s most moving, and I have to agree. It honors the Jews who were brought to the Danube by the militiamen of the Arrow Cross Party (the Hungarian equivalent of Nazis), ordered to remove their shoes, and then shot so that their bodies fell into the Danube and were swept away.

Monuments

Budapest is a city of monuments. They have them everywhere and for many different things and for people and events in history. Here are a few that stood out to me.

Momument, Gellert Hill, Budapest — This is a representation of the great spiritual and religious leaders in history, including Jesus, Ghandi, Lao Tzu, Buddha, and others I don’t remember. Notice the prostrate person on the right – old women can be found to be begging throughout Budapest in such a prostrate position.

Soviet monument, Freedom Square, Hungary — These and other Soviet monuments used to be everywhere when Communism ruled in Hungary, but this is the only one left in the city outside Memento Park, where the rest are housed. Hungary keeps this monument in the city center; in exchange, Russia pays to maintain Hungarian military cemeteries (or so my tour guide told me). This monument is located, ironically, in Freedom Square.

Ronald Reagan, Ronnie, Statue, Freedom Square, Budapest — This is Ronnie. That’s the Parliament building over his right shoulder. Ronnie is located in Freedom Square with the Soviet monument and faces that monument. The Hungarians love Ronnie because, to them, he’s responsible for bringing communism to an end.

Jozsef Attila, Poet, Statue, Bust, Budapest — This monument is to the poet Jozsef Attila. I thought the pose was funny. There are a couple monuments to him in the city, including a very popular one along the Danube outside of Parliament – a larger-than-life Attila sits on the steps, arms resting on his knees, facing the Danube; on the step faces are the words to his famous poem “At the Danube.”

St. Gellert, monument, Gellert Hill, Budapest — This is the St. Gellert monument on Gellert Hill. This is the hill and the stairwells I was enticed up that night a couple weeks ago. I couldn’t get a good picture of this at night, but the monument is breathtaking in its beauty, with the white stone staircases zigzagging up the hill toward the monument.

Kobuci Kert

Kobuci Kert is an outdoor performance venue in a courtyard amongst a bunch of old buildings and museums and such. It has a bar and a small food cart, but you can also bring in your own food and drinks. It’s off the beaten tourist path in Budapest – on the Buda side, up north past Margit Island. On (some) Thursday nights, they have traditional Hungarian folk music and people show up IN DROVES to dance. The floor is completely packed, sometimes as early as 8pm. It is a FABULOUS time.

Kobuci Kert, Hungarian Folk Dancing, Budapest — There were 5 concentric circles of dancers at this point in the night. It was impossible to move.

Opera

Hungary’s State Opera House is a gorgeous building with a dramatic history. There’s a whole complex in the opera house built just for the emperor, Franz Josef of Austria at the time, but he only visited the opera house once. Partially funded by Franz Josef, the designers were commanded not to make the opera house larger than the one in Vienna. The designers (there were 3 over the course of the construction due to various accidents) adhered to this rule, yet Franz Josef was said to be upset all the same when he came to visit the Opera House for the first time. The Hungarians like to say he never told them not to make it more beautiful than the Vienna Opera House, and this is why he was angry. In any case, his luxurious royal box went unused for the rest of his reign. His wife, Queen Elizabeth, who the Hungarians call Sisi, did go back to the opera often, but was not allowed in the Royal box without the emperor. As such, she had her own box, called “Sisi’s box,” which was immediately left of the stage.

Fortunately, the Opera House was only minorly damaged during WWII, so it’s mostly all original.

Sisi's box, Opera House, Budapest — View of the theater from Sisi’s box.

Budapest Opera House — Panorama of the inside of the the theater. The Royal box is right in the middle; Sisi’s box is on the far right, second level up.

Budapest Opera House Royal Entrance — Royal entrance into the Opera House.

Budapest Opera House, Aristocrat Box — Aristocrat boxes. Sisi’s is at the very end.

M.C. Escher-like foyer of the Budapest Opera House. — The Opera House foyer. I thought it looked a bit like and MC Escher sketch.

Szent Istvan Bazilika

St. Stephen’s Basilica is massive, beautiful, and only a little over a hundred years old. It is extremely ornate, with frescos, statues, mosaics, gold gilt, and no hidden corner left unadorned.

Oh…and the 1000-year old hand.

St. Istvan Bazilika, St. Stephen's Basilica, Budapest — Inside the Basilica.

St. Istvan Bazilika, St. Stephen's Basilica, Pipe Organ, Budapest — The famed basilica organ.

St. Istvan Bazilika, St. Stephen's Basilica, Rotunda, Spiral Staircase, Budapest — The first set of stairs to climb to get up to the basilica’s rotunda.

St. Istvan Bazilika, St. Stephen's Basilica, Rotunda, Budapest — Gorgeous panoramas from the rotunda. That’s the Liberty Statue on Gellert Hill in the distance, and you can see the dome of the Buda Castle across the Danube on the far right.

Dohany Street Synagogue

The Dohany Street Synagogue is an impressive building, the largest synagogue in Europe. It was completed in the middle of the 19th century. I heard the synagogue was able to protect many Jews during WWII. I did not go into the synagogue, sadly. But I did walk by it every day on my way to language lessons.

Margit-sziget

I visited Margit Island today and I have to say, I loved it. Margit Island is named for Princess Margit, who’s father banished her here in the 13th century as a sacrifice to God for having helped Hungary defeat the invaders of the time. Margit was said to be very devout and was later canonized a Saint.

Margit island is a big island in the Danube north of central Budapest and is basically a big park. It is over a mile long and just over a quarter mile wide. It has parking lots on the north side of the island, but there are otherwise almost no personal vehicles on the single road that traverses the island. It has an athletic complex, a running path along the Pest side of the island, a water park with big, twisting water slides, a Japanese Garden, an open air playhouse, flower gardens, big open grassy areas, a water fountain that does a choreographed musical performance, and the ruins of the convent where Princess Margit lived. It also has a nice-looking hotel. If I every come back to Budapest with money, that’s where I’ll stay.

Margit-Sziget, Margaret Island, Budapest — This is the lovely view that greets you as you enter the island from the Margit Bridge on the south end.

Margit-Sziget, Margaret Island, Dancing Water Fountain, Budapest — The choreographed water fountain was amazing and not nearly as corny as it sounds.

Margit-Sziget, Margaret Island, Convent Ruins, Budapest — The ruins of the convent where Margit lived. There’s a children’s performance going on on the left hand side.

Margit-Sziget, Margaret Island, Japanese Garden, Budapest — Japanese Garden.

Drinking Fountains

These are what drinking fountains look like in Budapest. You cup your hand to get the water, or just fill up your water bottle. Easy for foreigners to mistake as decorative fountains.

TL;DR: Maybe just look at the pics?

Hungary/Travelogue

Szimpla vs. Instant

Posted on August 28, 2015 by Janet

I went bar-hopping a few nights ago for the first time in I don’t know how long. Met up with some fellow solo-traveling friends at the original (or so they say) ruins pub, Szimpla Kert. A ruins pub is basically a bar established in the ruins of an old building that hasn’t been rebuilt. In the case of Szimpla Kert, there’s no roof over much of it, the walls separating the various rooms of the building are mostly gone so you just have these niches cut out of the main space where the bars are and this sense of little hidden nooks and crannies everywhere, and only parts of the external side walls of the original building remain.

After a few drinks and some food, we headed to Instant, whose status as a ruins pub is questionable given its well-defined separate rooms and structural integrity. Nevertheless, Instant has all the characteristics of a ruins pub, with its many separate rooms and open-air courtyard in the middle.

“Absurd” is the only way to describe Instant. Whereas Szimpla feels very random and haphazard in its decoration – old-style lamp shades, chairs hanging from cables stretched across the sky above the courtyard, an old car-cum-dining booth, Frankenchairs, doll heads here and there – Instant is intentionally absurd in it’s design. Owl heads are everywhere and on everything, and rabbits are a popular addition as well. It’s common to see images spliced together to create weird new images. The walls were papered with huge, wall-sized pictures of circus-freak families and people with owl heads and other absurdities.

Courtyard of the ruins pub Instant. — The strange owl-angel that watches over the Instant courtyard. Note the “flock” of rabbits opposite the owl strung up over the courtyard. Pic taken from the Instant website.

Instant has three floors and we got there just as a live rap performance was wrapping up in the basement. I don’t know who the artist was, I never heard a name, but he was clearly American. After the performance, it was open mic night. That’s right – I got to see a bunch of Hungarians rapping in Hungarian. It was wildly entertaining and I LOVED it. If you’re curious what Hungarian rapping is like, check out my crappy videos here.

After we grew weary of Instant, we decided to scope out the scene back at Szimpla Kert. It was about 2:30am, and the two bars are almost 3/4 of a mile away from each other. Along the way, we came across a couple Brits who asked for a lighter. We got to talking and it turned out they were on their way from Szimpla over to Instant. After chatting on the street for about 10 minutes, they convinced us to come back to Instant with them. They were lovely – two guys from Warwickshire, where Shakespeare is from, with accents that I don’t know how to describe – definitely not from London. We drank and we danced and somehow an hour and half had passed before I knew where it had gone. They were off to Bratislava on a 9:30am train, and we finally parted ways around 4:15am.

I hated my 3-hours-of-sleep zombie-self the next (or maybe “later that”?) morning, but I still wouldn’t have traded the experience for a few more Zs.

TL;DR: “Watching live Hungarian rap” retroactively awarded to my bucket list, checked off with great flourish.

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